soracities:

“Although it was just November, they had lit a fire at home, just a small brazier with red-hot charcoal ensconced in snow-white ashes. The coal had been a tree. Then the tree died, yet now, in the glowing fire, its body had come alive again–alive, but soon to turn into ashes. The first time life was green, the second time, a dark red.”

— Eileen Chang, from “Traces of Love”, Lust, Caution & Other Stories